Morrison Says Error in H.I.V. Test Hurt Career

Tommy Morrison had a seemingly boundless future in 1996. A former heavyweight boxing champion, he had had a starring role in “Rocky V” and was in line for his biggest payday, a showdown against Mike Tyson. All that came to an abrupt end, though, when he tested positive for H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS.

These days, he is back in the ring. He fought in West Virginia in February, and his return has raised questions of just how a fighter whose blood tested positive for H.I.V. in 1996 could test clean today.

This year, Morrison took two separate blood tests to support his assertion that he was not infected with H.I.V., West Virginia officials said last week. The test results provide new details on why they licensed him to return to the ring 11 years after he tested positive.

Two nationally renowned H.I.V. experts reviewed those and a third blood test for The New York Times, and said they suggested Morrison had been knocked out of the ring by false positive tests — if, indeed, the new tests are his blood.

However, five prominent ringside physicians remained skeptical of the assertion because Morrison tested positive for H.I.V. a number of times in Nevada in 1996. The virus is not curable. Morrison had not publicly challenged the 1996 findings until last year.

The doctors all said the only way to resolve the issue was with new testing.

“I seriously, seriously doubt he would pass any of this,” Dr. David Watson, the chief ringside physician in Nevada, said in a telephone interview.

H.I.V. is of particular risk for boxers because of the wounds and flying blood sometimes associated with the sport. H.I.V. can be transmitted through cuts or mucous membranes in the eyes and nose, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says.

Photo

In his first fight in 11 years, Tommy Morrison knocked out John Castle in a sanctioned event on Feb. 22 in Arthur, W. Va. He plans to have more fights.Credit
Keith Srakocic/Associated Press

Morrison, 38, who has often derided conventional views on H.I.V. and AIDS, said he was pleased to hear some experts supported his assertion of a false positive.

“People are starting to wake up,” he said last week in a telephone interview. “There’s been a lot of careers destroyed along the way for no reason. Mine’s certainly been one of them.”

The Times obtained copies of three documents, not previously made public, that purport to be tests of Morrison’s blood this year.

One of them, negative for H.I.V. antibodies, was a report from LabCorp in Phoenix on blood drawn Feb. 6 and was released by Peter McKinn, Morrison’s promoter. The second, which did not detect H.I.V. in DNA, was a LabCorp report on blood drawn Feb. 14 and was released by West Virginia. The state used those tests to license Morrison to box, said Michele Duncan Bishop, general counsel for the West Virginia Department of Revenue, which oversees the athletics commission.

A third test, from Specialty Laboratories of Valencia, Calif., on blood drawn Jan. 5, indicates Morrison tested positive for H.I.V. antibodies but negative for H.I.V. in RNA. That report was released by Randy D. Lang, Morrison’s former legal adviser, who said the antibody result showed Morrison was still infected.

But the experts said the RNA result in the same report raised the possibility that the antibody result was a false positive, an event that studies say occurs in fewer than 1 in 100,000 cases.

The mixed result in the Jan. 5 test makes it “likely that the antibody result is a false positive,” according to Dr. Daniel R. Kuritzkes, a Harvard professor who directs AIDS research at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and is chairman of the board of the H.I.V. Medicine Association. Kuritzkes reviewed the test for The Times. Without additional blood work, he added in an e-mail message, “it’s hard to know for sure what’s going on, but I suspect he was never H.I.V.-infected.”

Dr. Michael P. Busch, director of the Blood Systems Research Institute and a professor of laboratory medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, said H.I.V. antibody screening was misinterpreted a small percentage of the time. He said the RNA and DNA tests, which measure the virus directly rather than through antibodies, would virtually prove that the person was not harboring even a latent infection.

“If those results are really all from this person, I would tell you there is no way this person is infected, so something is wrong with those earlier results,” Busch said.

Busch said there was a biological basis for some false positives on H.I.V. antibody tests, which makes some people repeatedly test false positive, although the reasons are not well understood.

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Experts agreed that if Morrison was not infected with H.I.V. today, then he never had been. “There has never been a documented case of an H.I.V.-infected person who clears the virus and is cured,” Dr. Timothy Mastro, deputy director of the C.D.C.’s Division of H.I.V./AIDS Prevention, said in a telephone interview. Mastro added that the quality of H.I.V. diagnosis is “extraordinarily high.”

Several ringside physicians questioned whether all the 2007 blood work actually belonged to Morrison because of his multiple tests showing H.I.V. antibodies in 1996. Dr. Margaret Goodman, former chief ringside physician in Nevada, said the pathologist who conducted the 1996 tests for Quest Diagnostics in Las Vegas had told her they were unequivocally positive. That pathologist did not return calls for comment.

Dr. William E. Lathan, the former medical director for the New York Athletic Commission, who reviewed the 2007 tests for The Times, said he would exercise extra caution to protect fighters and fans if there were even a question about a fighter’s being positive. “I’m not saying that Tommy is infectious; I’m saying that nobody can prove that he isn’t,” Lathan said.

Morrison’s own physician confirmed Nevada’s results in 1996, according to news reports. It immediately halted a career in which Morrison was poised for million-dollar paydays in the ring.

Photo

Morrison had a role in "Rocky V" in 1990. In 1996, he tested positive for H.I.V.Credit
United Artists/Courtesy Everett Collection

Instead, Morrison became a spokesman for AIDS awareness, created the KnockOut AIDS Foundation and spoke publicly about the importance of safe sex. He also spent 14 months in prison on drug and weapons charges in 2000 and 2001; it was there, Morrison said, that he first took H.I.V. medication and first tested negative. He said he remained quiet so he could do further research about the disease.

The first time anyone publicly said Morrison did not have H.I.V. was last year.

Morrison, who alternates between a raspy scream and a nonchalant monotone in interviews, has come to blame boxing authorities for what he said was an unjust ban from the sport.

“They have no idea what’s going on,” he said.

Morrison’s actions earlier this year raised questions about his health. He withdrew an application to fight in Arizona, saying he had hurt his hand in training, 10 days after taking the blood test Jan 5. He withdrew an application to fight in Texas in April after officials said they wanted more medical information.

West Virginia, known for its lax medical rules, sanctioned Morrison to fight in February. Bishop, the state attorney, said West Virginia law required only that a boxer be “physically fit,” but that authorities could require additional tests if they thought someone might be a danger to himself or others. Bishop said Morrison’s promoter gave them the H.I.V.-negative test of antibodies from Feb. 7, but they had not seen the Jan. 5 test showing H.I.V. antibodies but no virus in his RNA.

West Virginia required Morrison to take a test for H.I.V. in his cellular DNA.

Dr. Michael B. Schwartz, a Connecticut physician and president of the American Association of Professional Ringside Physicians, consulted for West Virginia. In interviews, he said he advised them to have the tests done through Dr. Patricio Reyes, a Phoenix physician, to assure that it was Morrison’s blood.

Reyes said that Morrison never showed up for a scheduled appointment. Instead, records show, Morrison went through Request A Test, Ltd., an Ohio company, to draw blood at LabCorp in Phoenix.

Based on that result, Schwartz advised West Virginia on Feb. 20 that Morrison did not have H.I.V.

Morrison knocked out John Castle in a sanctioned bout Feb. 22 in Arthur, W. Va. Since then, he has fought once in mixed martial arts. He says he plans to continue a comeback. Morrison said he hoped to vindicate himself with a public blood test in Nevada in the coming weeks.

“Have Mr. Morrison visit an infectious disease specialist to perform a complete evaluation,” Schwartz wrote in an e-mail message. “Then you will have the answer as to whether he is positive or negative.”

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page SP1 of the New York edition with the headline: Morrison Says Error in H.I.V. Test 11 Years Ago Cut Short His Career. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe